It’s been a year since then-Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke first hinted that “tapering” of Fed bond purchases would soon commence. But the broad U.S. stock market, which was rattled at first — and was expected to crumble — has kept climbing.

Indeed, the words are now etched into the minds of Wall Street money managers: “In the next few meetings, we could take a step down in our pace of purchase.”

Ba-boom. Those were the words uttered by Bernanke in a question-and-answer session with members of Congress on May 22, 2013.

In retrospect, we now know the nation’s central bank started dialing back its asset purchases in January, and continued to do so gradually at each meeting this year. At its last meeting in late April, the Fed, now led by Janet Yellen, cut its purchases of long-term Treasuries and mortgage-backed bonds by another $10 billion to $45 billion per month, down from its peak of $85 billion.

So how has the stock market responded?

Heading into trading Friday, the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 stock market has risen 14.3% since Bernanke made “tapering” a household word a year ago.

Not bad, considering that Wall Street figured a less-friendly Fed would cause bond yields to rise (which hasn’t happened), tripping up the economic recovery and corporate profitability along the way. The worst-case scenarios related to Fed “tapering” have not yet come to fruition, as the economy has continued to heal despite less Fed stimulus.

But financial markets are now worried that when tapering ends later this year, that stocks will start to tremble at the thought of the Fed starting to hike short-term interest rates six months after tapering ends.